TEXTBOOKS SHOULD BECOME OBSOLETE in the next few years, U.S. Secretary of Education Arnold Duncan reportedly said during his remarks on October 2, 2012, to the National Press Club. . This declaration is not part of his prepared remarks
Duncan called for the nation to move as fast as possible away from printed textbooks and toward digital ones. “Over the next few years, textbooks should be obsolete … This has to be where we go as a country.” The U.S. Department of Education has moved that direction.
One financial market related action after Duncan’s declaration is that McGraw-Hill, a major textbook publisher, announced the sale yesterday of their education division. The company announced either the sale or closing of this division a year ago.
From a learners’ view (ALV), Duncan’s declaration acknowledges the growing number and types of sources available online for reading and viewing.
The remark also leaves open for rapid development of reliable ways to give priority through classroom assignments to fundament behavior patterns people use to learn that content efficiently and promptly.
Duncan’s government view is reminiscent of educators trying to figure out how to use television in schools during the 1950s and ’60s. That effort resulted in public broadcasting and educational television corporations as well as the c-spans and oodles of academic papers and government reports espousing how-tos, virtues and problems.
It’s unclear what effect total movement to online sources will have on measured academic performance outcomes for the U.S. student body.
It is an interesting government sponsored experiment to redeploying private capital in the name of the public good.
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